8 Lessons I Have Learned After 5 Years as an Early Retiree

Five years ago, I took the leap to retire early—fifteen years before Social Security’s full-retirement age. I left my career as a civil servant at the Department of Defense at its peak—not just in terms of my highest compensation but also my greatest influence and status. And yet, it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. Since retiring early, my life has changed for the better—no regrets. Looking back on these past five years, here are eight things I learned about early retirement and myself:   

[Post Photo Caption: Immersing myself in history at the Giza complex in Egypt as a full-time traveler]

Lesson 1: You don’t have to have your retirement figured out before you retire. 

You really don’t. I wrote about this in my post on myths of early retirement, but it deserves some additional explanation as I received some feedback. When I retired, I had a general idea that I wanted to follow my curiosities and no longer spend the majority of my waking time and my physical and mental energy earning more money than I needed. When I left my full-time job, I had no idea that I would become a minimalist, find my dream job, quit that job, and travel the world full-time for two years and counting. I didn’t know how I or my retirement would evolve before I retired, and I didn’t need to know, yet. That knowledge unfolded.

When you or I retire, we don’t mysteriously become another person. Our minds don’t turn to mush and we are only saved by careful retirement preparation, planning, and practice. Instead, we wake up the next morning like we would on a long weekend or vacation (hopefully without an alarm) refreshed and ready to tackle the next chapter of our lives to include figuring out what that chapter will look like. I didn’t suddenly stop being a doer and lose any sense of my ability to learn things and get things done. Quite the opposite. I now had ample time and a full tank of physical and mental energy that until now I’d been applying toward work to apply toward figuring out retirement. 

Before retirement, when I was physically and mentally exhausted working long hours at my job and fitting in my everyday life chores around that, was not the right time to try out new hobbies or make new retirement friends. Forcing a new hobby into my already busy life and precious little down time, particularly one that would benefit from daytime hours and my full energy, would have added to my stress and risk me resenting the new endeavor that I might otherwise enjoy.

It is OK to not know what you want to do in retirement. Leaving work frees up the time and energy to explore and try out new things and meet new people. I learned an enormous amount about myself after retirement because I had the time, energy, and resources to do so. We don’t have to have it all figured out in advance—we can leverage our time in retirement to do just that. Protect what little white space you have in your working life and know that retirement will provide ample time to decide what to do next.

Lesson 2: Stress testing your retirement plan works. 

Stress testing my wife’s and my retirement plan has paid big dividends in how well we are enjoying our retirement. It made us both comfortable to retire early and brought comfort and confidence as our plans in retirement have evolved significantly over the last 5 years.

Stress testing isn’t just calculating our safe withdrawal rate that our investments would provide and comparing that to our known expenses. I also stress tested our retirement plan against unforeseen life changes that might derail our plan, such as one of us dying early, divorce, long-term care needs, or major health challenges. We also tested our plan against increased spending on family and favorite charities beyond our planned retirement spending levels. 

Due to this stress testing, handling a surprise major health diagnosis a year into retirement didn’t derail our plans. Similarly, increasing our financial support of our family and donating more to causes we value hasn’t altered our plan. Stress testing our plan helped ensure our successful retirement. I provide more details on stress testing my retirement plan here.

Lesson 3: Trusting your retirement plan is key to enjoying retirement. 

There is an important mental component to overcome when retiring early—fear. Fear that inflation will skyrocket, fear that the stock market will tank for an extended period, and fear that we missed planning for some unknown expense that will derail our retirement. I learned that this fear is unfounded. The 4% safe withdrawal rate that underpins financial independence is already very conservative and includes historical fluctuations in inflation. All of my double checking of spreadsheet formulas, running performance scenarios, and stress testing our plan made our plan even more solid. I had to remind myself that we have a lot of flexibility to adjust spending which creates options in our plan. My fear was self-imposed and unfounded, and by recognizing it, letting it go, and trusting my plan, I greatly increased my contentment with my choice to retire early.  

Lesson 4: Work identity is a self-imposed weight. 

Our identity is frequently intertwined with our jobs. In the US, asking what you do for a living is a common first question when meeting someone new. As a society, we put a lot of weight on our work and measure our importance by our titles. I was no different. I was proud to tell people I was an Air Force officer for 20 years, then a civilian director at the Pentagon after that. 

So when I decided to retire early, I was worried about what I would tell people when they asked what I was going to do after leaving my job. A significant reason I decided to become a graduate student after retiring was to be able to tell people at my old job that I was going back to school full time, as they (and I) struggled to understand my decision to leave my hard-won director’s position. I thought “grad studies” carried a level of respect and fit within society’s paradigm of what I should be doing with my time. Telling people I was “retired” sounded less important and I assumed people would think less of me. But the truth is, all of the weight and importance of a work identity was self-imposed. When I let that go, I was better able to discover who I really was—what was most important to me.

When I left graduate school, I decided to own my early retirement and just tell people that I was retired. I discovered that people didn’t care (many were intrigued) and the importance of the title was really about my own judgment of myself.

Our identities should not be primarily defined by our jobs. My identity consists of many things. I am a husband, father, brother, son, and friend. I am a traveler, reader, hiker, minimalist, language learner, coach, student of history and of life, and writer. Who I am has changed over time and I will continue to evolve. By recognizing the power and weight we give to our job identity, we can put it into perspective with all of our other identities and help us mentally transition to early retirement more smoothly. The self-imposed weight of paid work titles no longer overshadows who I really am—a proud early retiree. 

Letting go of my work title was challenging.
My official photo when I was promoted to Director of my office at the Pentagon. It was challenging to let go of my work identity when I retired early (but not challenging to let the suit and tie go!).

Lesson 5: Even with total time freedom, you have to focus on your top values.

Since retiring I have learned to focus on what I value most. I knew beforehand I needed to focus more on my health, so that one was easier. But it took more effort to identify what I wanted to do most with my newfound time freedom. I tried graduate school to pursue my love of history, cycling, gardening, and working my dream job educating service members on personal finance. I also wanted to travel more (a lot more) and spend more quality time with my family and friends. I wanted to improve my language skills, and read more. Trying to do all of these and keep up our house, cars, yard, and other commitments meant not doing any of them very well. I found that by slicing up my time with so many activities often derailed what was most important to me. 

A big step in helping me refine what I valued most was minimalism. I began a two-and-a-half-year process of letting go of everything that was holding me back. Through that, I was able to identify my top five values and actively stop doing numbers 6 through 20 that were eating up my time and energy. I discovered that the more I traveled, the more I wanted to travel. I also didn’t want to repeat my mistake of not spending enough quality time with my dad before his Alzheimer’s worsened. As I shed my possessions my clarity of what I wanted to do came into focus—lots of slow travel, more quality time with family and friends, focus on my health, reading more, and improving my language skills and history knowledge. 

By letting go of my full-time job and the physical possessions around my lower value interests, I was able to focus on what was most important to me. I know my values will change over time, but the process I learned, of identifying what I value most, will remain. 

Time freedom enables us to spend quality time doing what we value most
Following my curiosity at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo—I spent all day there!

Lesson 6: It’s harder to transition to retirement if your partner still works. 

Having time freedom as an early retiree was (is!) fantastic, but early on I didn’t have complete time flexibility as Launa (my wife and best friend) continued to work for two more years. Similarly, my other friends were working also. So, while I enjoyed riding my bike along empty trails, hiking when no one was around, visiting DC’s fabulous free museums mid-week, I didn’t get to share these experiences with my best friend and compound our memory dividends

To mitigate this challenge, I pursued projects that helped fill my days and free up time when my wife and other friends were free. A key thing was doing shared chores like grocery shopping, laundry, dishes, car maintenance, and other errands during the day so when Launa was off work we could fully enjoy our evenings and weekends together. I spent my first year of retirement as a full-time graduate student. I completed most of my reading and writing during the day. I pivoted from grad school to personal finance coaching during my second year and worked in my dream job. But when my wife decided to retire early also, I was very motivated to align with her six months later when I quit my dream job

For the last 2.5 years, retirement has been spectacular because we are enjoying it together with complete time freedom. While I certainly enjoyed my first 2.5 years of retirement, I was still tethered to the working world’s schedule. I learned that the benefits of early retirement can be more fully realized when your timing aligns with your partner. 

Early retirement is better when your partner is also retired
Early retirement would not be nearly as sweet without my best friend to enjoy it with!

Lesson 7: Having complete time freedom is gold.

Not all time is equal. I recall when my work day was chopped into a hundred 5-minute periods responding to email, voicemails, and putting out the latest fires with leadership and my staff. Though I frequently worked long hours, I struggled to find time to tackle the most important tasks because they required hours of uninterrupted time to accomplish. I had the same amount of time each day, but it wasn’t effective time when it was chopped into small pieces and limited my options for what I was able to accomplish.

Time in daily life is similar. Four hours of free time broken into 15-minute chunks across several evenings after a long day of work is less useful than a four-hour block of uninterrupted time when I am well rested and focused. Trying to buy back our time in small increments, like hiring housekeeping or lawn care, rarely provides us valuable time to spend. Applying this to different financial independence paths (below), we can see different levels of time value. 

Coast FIRE: Having enough invested early in life to be able to retire in your 60s (aka coast FIRE) is better than the traditional retirement path (slowly investing 10-15 percent every year until age 67) as coast FIRE offers more flexibility of work choices to include part-time opportunities. But you will still have to work to pay the bills until retirement, so your time is not fully your own. 

Barista FIRE: Having your passive income cover some of your expenses and having to work part-time to cover the rest, such as working as a barista (aka barista FIRE) also provides more flexibility than the traditional retirement path, but work still controls a portion of your schedule and limits your time options.

Sabbaticals: Taking periodic sabbaticals, either within a job or between jobs, can provide some increased time flexibility, but it is limited by the length of the sabbatical and your financial situation. For example, you cannot commit to a 2-year volunteer opportunity if you only have 3 months off. Work sabbaticals often delay achieving full financial independence by spending early savings before it can compound.

Being fully financially independent with the ability to retire early (aka traditional FIRE) provides the most time flexibility. Every hour—every day—of retirement has every possibility. You decide (not your boss) what to do with your time. It wasn’t until both my wife and I achieved full financial independence that I realized how free my time was. We can now say yes to anything and our only time limitations are those we impose on ourselves—pure gold! Knowing how much more valuable my time is now, I wouldn’t do it any other way.

Lesson 8: My previous accomplishments reduced pressure to pursue big external goals in retirement.

I recognize that the earlier one retires the harder it might be to not continue working for pay to fulfill the human need for accomplishment. I worked 30 years full-time after college. Twenty years on active duty and ten years as a civil servant at the Pentagon. My jobs focused on service to military members and their families. I am proud of all I accomplished in the working world. Also during those 30 years, I served on the board of directors for two nonprofits, served as president of the neighborhood civic association, and coached recreational soccer for 25 seasons. 

I share this because I no longer feel that strong desire to “make my mark” externally as I did when I was younger. I don’t need to “find my purpose” in early retirement. My need for purpose was fulfilled with accomplishment over those 30 years. I had long strived for external validation (promotions, awards, accolades, prestige) that my jobs readily provided. Looking back, I can see that one downside of this external focus is that I had prioritized it over taking good care of my health and spending more quality time with my family.

Now as an older early retiree (I retired at age 52), I feel freer to focus on myself and my family and friends. This was something I knew was missing, but I wasn’t able to take action until after I freed myself from the inertia and gravitational pull of the working world. I have learned to focus on what I value the most, no longer trying (and often failing) to squeeze in health and family around work commitments.  

Accomplishments through life can help fulfill the desire for purpose in life
Presentation of a shadow box at my retirement from active duty — the Air Force provided many opportunities for fulfilling purpose and gaining a sense of accomplishment and recognition.

My first 5 years of early retirement have been great. I trusted my plan. I shed many societal pressures related to identity and accomplishment. I learned the value of time freedom and having someone to share it with. I learned about the power of minimalism in helping me focus on what I valued most. I let myself change and I look forward to continued evolution in the next five years of early retirement.

Calculating Functional Net Worth

Net worth is a key measure of building wealth. I have been calculating my net worth since 2011 so I can see my progress over time, and it’s a really useful tool.

Many people are familiar with calculating their net worth: you add up the value of all of your assets (e.g., stocks, bonds, real estate, and savings*), subtract your liabilities (mortgage, loans, and credit cards),  and the difference is your (hopefully positive) net worth.

Of course, you may have other assets that are harder to account for in this formula. For example, a military pension. My military pension provides valuable monthly income and I believe it should be included in my net worth, but it doesn’t lend itself easily to asset valuation.

How to Calculate the Functional Net Worth

How do we calculate the value of a pension—or other benefit that provides monthly income (or reduces expenses)—and include that in our net worth?

One way is to determine what it would cost to purchase an annuity that provides the same monthly income by pricing an Single Premium Immediate Annuity (SPIA) however, this method doesn’t answer the question of “How does my pension relate to my income from stocks, bonds, and other similar investments?” This is where my handy functional net worth calculation comes in.

To calculate the value of my pension, I use the 4% rule of thumb. This rule, first proposed by William Bengen in 1994 and validated in a 1998 Trinity University Study, is based on historical investment return research.

They found that investments in a combination of stocks (50-70%) and bonds (30-50%) historically returned 4%, annually adjusted for inflation, without running out of money over a 30-year period. If you decide to use a different percentage higher or lower than 4% just divide 100 by your number and get the new multiplier to replace the 25 I use from the 4% rate. For example for a 3.25% withdrawal rate, it would be 100/3.25=30.8.

But Why Calculate the Functional Net Worth?

Before I get into the formulas, I’ll briefly explain why I believe Functional Net Worth is useful.

Many personal finance books, articles, and podcasts in the FI arena make the assumption that most assets are invested in stocks and bonds and real estate. Advice around diversification, spending limits, and other guidance often relates to a percentage of total assets invested.

But if I include additional assets, such as my military pension, I can treat the pension asset as a very stable (i.e., low risk) part of my portfolio. I can invest the cash portion of my portfolio in higher risk investments (e.g., stocks) as a result with less need for investing a large portion in lower-risk bonds.

When I view my entire net worth to include my stable (and inflation adjusted) military pension, the remaining portion of my investment portfolio can take on more risk.

Military Pension

Here is my calculation formula for my military pension:

annual gross pension income*25 or ((monthly gross pension income)*12)*25)

On my Excel spreadsheet the formula looks like this:  =((XXXX*12)*25)

where XXXX is my monthly gross pension income

If monthly pension income is $3,500 per month, the calculation would be ((3500*12)*25) and would result in a pension value of $1,050,000 – yep, if you have a military pension paying you $3500 gross per month, you are a millionaire in my book.

This formula takes the annual gross income (before taxes) and multiplies it by 25, or multiplies the monthly gross income by 12 and then by 25.

Social security calculation would work similarly but keep in mind that it can be taxed differently based on your other income which could impact the calculation some.

Tax Exempt Benefits (e.g., VA Disability)

For tax exempt benefits like VA disability payments, the formula is a little bit more complex to account for the tax savings.

annual gross disability income*25 or ((monthly gross pension income)*12)/tax rate)*25)

On my Excel spreadsheet the formula looks like this:  =((XXXX*12)/0.YY)*25

where XXXX is my monthly gross tax-exempt payment and YY is the tax rate subtracted from 100 (e.g., for 22% tax bracket the number would be 0.78, for 12% it would be 0.88).

If your monthly disability payment is $2000 per month in a 12% tax bracket, then the calculation would be =((2000*12)/0.88)*25 and would result in a disability value of $681,818. This number would be higher if you are in a higher tax bracket.

Military Healthcare Benefits

This same formula (minus the low annual TRICARE premium, if applicable) also works for calculating the net worth value of the military retiree lifetime healthcare benefits. To estimate this value, I estimate what I would pay for commercial healthcare, either through an employer or the state exchanges (adjusting for any subsidies I may qualify for).

With my military income, rental property income, and retirement account income, I wouldn’t qualify for much (if any) subsidy. For a $1500 unsubsidized monthly healthcare premium (using a 22% tax bracket), the functional net worth value would be ~$576,900.

Conclusion

Calculating functional net worth, not just net worth, is a very useful exercise for military retirees and others with pensions or disability payments.

By adding the projected value of pension income and other high-valued benefits into my net worth, I am able to better identify what portion of my FIRE number needs to be investments, and how those investments should be diversified.

I can also better manage the risks of my investments over time. Seeing the equivalent investment amount, I would need to provide similar inflation-based income, as my pension and health care benefits, is a valuable marker of the progress I have made toward achieving FIRE.

* I don’t include cars, furniture, clothing, or other household items in my net worth calculation, because I view them as depreciable expenses that will sell for much less than I purchased them for and will generally need to be replaced when sold.


Why We Declined the Survivor Benefit Plan and Are Richer For It.

I often hear (and read) discussions about choosing either the military Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) or term life insurance to ensure the surviving spouse remains financially secure. This is comparing the wrong two things! (And any comparison of either with permanent (aka “whole”) life insurance is way off course.)

While both term life insurance and the SBP are insurance products, they are designed for different purposes. When deciding whether to elect the SBP insurance at retirement, the question is not whether the SBP insurance is a better financial choice than term life insurance, but whether the expected payouts from SBP will exceed the expected monetary gains from long-term investing of the SBP premiums (i.e., the opportunity cost of buying SBP insurance).

When I was retiring from the Air Force after 20 years, my wife and I were surprised by the cost of the monthly SBP premiums (6.5% of gross pay adjusted annually for inflation). We evaluated the potential investment gains from investing the same amount into low-cost index funds and decided not to purchase the Survivor Benefit Plan insurance. We chose self-insurance instead with no regrets.

To decline SBP, my wife had to physically accompany me and sign a notarized statement that she understood the decision and agreed to forgo the benefits. Below I walk through the numbers we ran to support this decision.

Expected Investment Return Calculation

At our retirement in 2011, our spouse SBP premium would have been $248 per month (6.5% of $3,809). The SBP premium increases each year for inflation. We used 3% as our average annual inflation rate (in 2025 the $248 premium would be an estimated $357 a month!)

To calculate our projected investment returns, we used the average annual inflation adjusted stock market return since 1926—which I determined was 7.3% at the time (market performance since I retired has been much better with 10% inflation adjusted returns, so the numbers used in this post are way below what actually happened). I then calculated our projected returns for 30-, 40-, and 50-year investment horizons.

Our estimated 30-year investment return came to $434K. After 30 years (age 72) SBP premiums are no longer taken out. After 40 years (age 82), and without additional contributions, the investment is expected to grow to $878K, and grow to $1.8 million by age 92 (50 years).

Again, these are inflation adjusted numbers, so the buying power remains constant over time to enable comparison. As you can see, the power of compounding doubled our money at each 10-year milestone.

We understand that past market performance is no guarantee of future results; likewise, actuarial tables do not predict individual outcomes. But both provided us with helpful planning factors. We are strong believers in compound interest and know that our investment horizon will continue long into our retirement years.

Actuarial Assessment

The DoD-provided SBP actuarial analysis tools (specifically the “SBP Probability” calculator) predicted my spouse would have a 47% chance of collecting 5 years of SBP benefits, a 29% chance for 10 years, and an 8% chance for 20 years. (I highly recommend reading Annie Duke’s book Thinking In Bets to understand how to make better decisions regarding probabilities)

These odds are not very high in our opinion, especially when you consider that if my spouse dies first, we get zero ($0) of the payout and zero ($0) of the premiums spent back.

Expected Payout Comparisons

Assuming I pass away 30 years after retirement, the $434K gain from investment would conservatively yield a monthly payout of $7233 over 5 years and $3616 over ten years (both unrealistically assuming no further growth, so these are overly conservative), while the SBP is projected to pay $2095 ($3,089 * 55%) a month.

Both payouts, SBP and our investments, are inflation adjusted (i.e., represent equal buying power) and would be taxed the same since we put the money in tax-deferred accounts (see note below on how we did that).

We felt that the 8% to 28% chance of a longer term SBP payout was less likely than a scenario in which I live well past age 72. Every additional year compounds the investment growth, while the SBP payout stays the same (again, both are adjusted for inflation).

If I lived 10 more years, the $878K accumulated investment would far exceed the $2095 monthly SBP payment, and 10 years beyond that is an insane difference. See table below.

Charts of SBP and Investment payouts for different time periods
SBP and Investment Expected Payouts by Age

The decision to decline spouse SBP is situationally based, so everyone should run their own numbers and assess their own risks. In many cases SBP can be a great choice. For example, the calculation likely would be different if you stayed on active duty for 30 years or if your spouse was significantly younger than you.

Both the SBP and term life insurance are insurance products, but they are different products. They are designed for different purposes and should not be compared head-to-head, but as part of a larger retirement plan.

Yeah, but what about a worst-case scenario?

We did plan for a worst-case scenario (e.g., an early death of the retiree) as it would be too costly to bear for the first 10 years. We needed to make sure my spouse was covered until we could build a portfolio that would ensure her support if I predeceased her too early (a very low risk scenario, but with high impacts).

We hedged against these risks in four primary ways (1) with the Child SBP, (2) with a 30-year term $500K life insurance policy that would cover our house mortgage (plus some extra), (3) delaying taking my Social Security to age 70 for maximum surviving spouse benefits, and last but not least (4) all of our other investments and workplace insurance — both hers and mine (I’m not discussing those here in full, but I didn’t want to completely ignore options that will cover a worst case). And remember, a worst case the other direction, that the spouse dies the day after the last SBP premium payment, favors declining Spouse SBP.

Our SWAN (sleep well at night) SBP declination decision was based on our entire financial picture and not just the SBP decision in a vacuum.

Child SBP Option

We did purchase the low cost $10.28 per month child SBP coverage to hedge against a worst-case scenario for our kids if I died early and in return, we received 12 years of coverage (until my youngest reached age 22 in college). This allowed us time to get our investment seeded and put other financial support in place. This was a decision we would have made whether we purchased the spouse SBP insurance or not as we needed to financially protect against my wife and I both dying early and needing funds to support our children until they finished college.

Term Life Insurance

If I pass away before 30 years, with the term life insurance hedge, my wife’s housing costs (our inflation stable mortgage payment) would drop by two thirds. With the returns after 12 years of investing (length of child SBP coverage), the combination would more than offset the missing SBP payments.

To be clear, term life insurance, as a hedge against an early death of the retiree, is often an important part of the broader retirement decision matrix, but it was not our primary consideration for making the cost comparison for our SBP decision.

There are other reasons to consider getting term life insurance. Life insurance is a separate part of our retirement plan intended to pay off our house mortgage (in the event of my early death) that we would purchase whether we took SBP or not. Since my wife was employed in a stable job, she could continue to work to pay the rest of the expenses not covered by the insurance payout.

Conclusion

If I outlive the 30-year life insurance policy (that’s the plan!), the house will be paid off AND the investment returns of the SBP premiums will self-insure us to more than cover what the SBP would have (and much more, the longer I live). On the flip side, if we took SBP and she predeceases me after 30 years, we would lose out on the entire $417K+ potential investment.

The risks go both ways. We didn’t let the fear of the low percentage risk of an early death for me drive our decision, but we also had a viable contingency plan to ensure that my wife would still be financially solvent for the long term. We of course made this decision based on our entire retirement plan (e.g., term life insurance, her work pension, Social Security, investments)—not just SBP in isolation. For us, looking back 11 years, we don’t regret our decision to turn down SBP in the slightest.

Update August 2025: after 14 years, all of our investments, SBP premiums and otherwise, has far exceeded our projected 7.3% investment return and compound interest has worked its magic (we achieved a 10% inflation adjusted return so far!). We have both retired early at age 52 and are self-insured with our real estate and other investments (and I still have my term life insurance for another 16 years). Since our investments far exceed any of our calculations above, we can now pocket and spend the now $357 (and growing due to inflation) monthly SBP premium if we want — nice passive income that we wouldn’t have if we let fear drive us to buy SBP insurance. The horse race was over long-before we needed to invest the remaining 16 years of projected SBP premiums—a Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) life is a great life!

Note on actuarial tables: The actuarial table provided didn’t include options to add health conditions and family health history, which could put any couple above or below these projected numbers. My longevity was predicted as higher than my spouse using more detailed calculators—this supported our personal decision to decline the SBP.

Note on taxes: While the SBP premiums are pre-tax, our investment of those funds were not necessarily post-tax monies when taking the entire income and tax picture into account. We invested these monies in long-term equities in a tax-deferred account.

Technically we paid tax on the earnings, but since my wife and I have access to TSP, 403b, and 457b accounts, we needed the cash flow to allow us to fully utilize these tax-deferred accounts, so, while the SBP premium money is taxed, it can be (and was in our case) offset by tax-deferred investments if you have tax-deferred account investment ceiling to work with.

One more note on taxes: Life insurance payouts are generally not taxed, so while the term insurance payout does not adjust for inflation, the payout is net of taxes whereas SBP payouts are taxed as income. By pledging our term-insurance payout to our mortgage, I believe we mitigated the inflationary impacts. The P&I portion of the mortgage payment stays the same over the life of the loan, so the insurance retains its purchase power for its intended purpose to pay off the house. The longer I live (up to the end of the mortgage term), the more residual money from the insurance will remain after paying off the house, which could also be invested. This potential investment opportunity was not part of our SBP decision.


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